Work continues after leaks

ALTON — An Illinois American Water crew continued working Monday to remedy issues related to last week’s five leaks that left 25 customers without water service.

“We are replacing a fire hydrant on the southeast corner of Market Street and Broadway,” said Karen Cotton, Illinois American manager of external affairs in Peoria. “Now, we want to make sure we don’t have a repeat.”

She said Monday that the company had lifted the boil order early Sunday. She said previously that all customers in the area had water service by 4 p.m. Friday.

The crew installed that replacement hydrant across the street from Lincoln-Douglas Square, which firefighters had been hosing down prior to the series of breaches Thursday evening. A resident of Mississippi Landing Lofts, 7 Alby St., told a reporter that night, “Alby Street was a river,” and water had gotten inside the ground floor of the building.

The gushing water also flooded Lincoln-Douglas Square and part of Front Street.

That small segment of hilly Alby Street between East Broadway and Front Street consequently buckled, leaving many of its bricks in crooked disarray. The utility crew dug up two areas on that street Friday, along with East Broadway near Market, made the repairs and temporarily patched the areas with rock. Bricks were piled up by the two rock-filled holes.

The street remains closed, despite evidence that someone drove over the northernmost patch, leaving tire tracks. An employee of the water company moved the barricades up closer to East Broadway on Monday afternoon, one which had been lying in the street.

Cotton said the company now wants to see if the repairs hold.

“It was such an uncommon event, we suspect pressure related to the fire hydrant caused this,” she said. “It could have been related to the fire hydrant and location in a high-pressure area. There is a lot of demand in (that) one area. It is a large-use area that also has a booster station and a main.”

She said the hilly landscape of the area also contributes to the “high pressure.”

Cotton said the company is working with the city to plan repairs of that portion of Alby Street, which will be responsibility of the utility company. Alton city ordinance requires specified sections of brick streets and alleys must be “maintained and preserved in or nearly as their originally constructed state as is reasonable and possible,” but Alby is not among them.

Another section of the same ordinance (6-1-5), requires: “Any bricks displaced by public utilities and contractors through their repair efforts on streets which are not included on the brick street preservation list shall be delivered by the public utility to the city street maintenance department.”